Good morning, Readers!

Image by Thomas Dardenne from Pixabay

I missed posting last week. Oops! So much for getting my act together.

I'm going to try getting myself in the habit of blogging at least once a week, slowly increasing as my schedule and abilities allow. Getting back into the habit is not easy. Breaking it was much, much simpler.

There's a lot of life-stuff still happening. I feel like I have finally unwound from my year-long wandering in the darkness of the soul. I've blossomed. It really is astounding how much I'm come alive since the move or, rather, how dead I had become inside. For starters, I've been painting up a storm!

One of the projects I had planned for forever has begun; and entire booklet of tiny watercolours in honour of the Year of the Tiger. So far, I've only completed two, having started the third on the weekend. Still, I'm really pleased with how they've turned out. Watercolour is an unfamiliar medium for me, so it's been a bit of a learning curve... and a test of my non-existent patience, but the out come has been worth it. I present to you, two tiger snoots:

The third one I've started is also a tiger snoot, but a little less boopable.

Then I'll be moving onto the eyes... or maybe the toe beans. Toe beans are so cute!

I'm planning another watercolour series that I'm keen on getting started on, but I am waiting until I have a little more experience with the medium... and I will be buying different watercolours. The ones I'm using now are those paints that are a palette of dry pigments, and I'd like to try a slightly wetter version. Each piece in the new series is going to be vaguely monochrome, so I can spend the time to save up for the paints.

Maybe I'll even sell a piece one of these days, and I'll be able to buy a bunch of new paints all at once!

A girl can dream.

I've also nearly finished my first painting on canvas in well over a year. There are a couple of things I need to fix up before I post any pics of that, though. Painting on canvas again has been absolutely wonderful, by the way. Without anyone but the cat to worry about, I'm able to play my music and paint. My most recent session, I stood at the canvas and danced as I painted. It was such a wonderful, joyful experience. I have missed painting so much.

I don't have any inspiration for more canvas paintings, but I have no doubt it'll happen. In the meantime, I have my ideas for watercolours to look forward to.

By the by, if you're interested in my art stuff, and couldn't be arsed with the rest of my nonsense, I have a Facebook page just for my art. If you're on Facebook, feel free to give it a like/follow. I put my art on there... and also on Instagram and TikTok. And DeviantArt.

As I stumble my way to normalcy, I have once again enrolled in martial arts with Wutan Canada. I have been teaching the whole way through, but after stress-induced symptoms that matched Covid (but never came up positive on the tests), which developed into a complete inability to function whatsoever (yay depression!), I had let it drop in the session before last. Then, last session, I had a move to deal with, and I still wasn't quite right once the move happened, so I didn't go at all.

The first class for the summer session is tonight.

Perhaps I would have found myself sooner if I had gone last session, what with training being such a rock for me in the past, but I really didn't feel up to it in any way. One accidental slip or annoying peer away, and I might have lost my mind for real. As it is now, I'm stupidly excited to return to training. I'm practically vibrating with anticipation.

Teaching is not the same as training, and I've rarely gotten the opportunity to punch and kick stuff while teaching, so I'm really keen to get going again.

I'm still holding out hope that one day soon I might be able to acquire a permanent place for us to train, so that we can avoid the bouncing between locations, and can concentrate on building a great body of students. I mean, we already have great people, but I want to share it with as many people as possible.

I keep promising writing news, and there is some, I promise. For now, though, this is what you get.

I hope you're all well and thriving.

Thanks for sticking with me all this time!

Until next week, then.

​Ciao!

Good afternoon, Readers!

I do have life updates and writing news, but I had a crazy weekend with little spare time to write this week's post and I'm at work on a very quick break, so I thought I'd let you all know about my publisher's hunt for acquisition readers instead. Here's the goss:

References

Even though this reading work is done on a volunteer basis, this still counts as work experience, which allows us to act as professional references for you in future employment endeavours!

Industry contacts

Renaissance is a member of the Association of English Language Publishers of Quebec, the Association of Canadian Pubilshers, and the Literary Press Group of Canada. One of our co-founders, Nathan, also sits on the board of directors of LitDistCo. We get all their newsletters, and we keep very informed of what is going on at other independent presses, which means we can easily pass on job opportunities and other industry news to you, as well as invite you to meetings you might be interested to sit in on, which often provide trainings and/or insights in the current Canadian publishing landscape.

Fun books to read

We have received SO MANY amazing stories every time we have opened for submissions in the past, it was sometimes physically painful to say no to some of them. One of (in our opinion) the best perks of reading our incoming manuscripts.

Confidentiality

Authors who submit to us trust us with their precious book babies, and we owe it to them to exercise the utmost discretion with it. Be respectful of their creative labour and do not disclose anything you read about the manuscript outside of filling the forms and speaking to Renaissance staff, whether positive or negative; authors deserve to know their ideas, characters, and worlds are safe with us.

3 years after having published a book with us

If you have published a book with Renaissance before, please know you cannot be a reader for us until three years have passed since original publication.

2 years before publishing a book with us

If you choose to be a reader for Renaissance, please know that you cannot also submit a manuscript for our consideration. You must wait at least two years after your resignation from reading for us before you may submit a manuscript.

Other conflicts of interest

You may not be a reader for Renaissance the same calendar year as a member of your immediate family, such as a spouse, parent, or child, submits a work for publication.

You may not be a reader for a work of which you are friends, ex-friends, ex-partners, or family with the author (this includes cousins, niblings, in-laws, grandparents, etc.), or any other person you have an existing relationship with (neighbour, co-worker, dogsitter, cat’s ex-lover’s sister-in-law, etc.) This rule is true whether the feelings you have towards this person are positive, negative, or neutral.

You may not evaluate a work you are also evaluating for another publishing company.
​
Please make use of judgement when evaluating whether a conflict of interest exists. You are required to disclose any conflict of interest immediately as they arise.

Yay for copy and paste! Alright, I have to run back to work now.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

​Image by snibl111 from Pixabay

This weekend saw many returns to myself.

For starters, I finally got working internet. A month after moving in (for real - my internet stared working Jun 2nd), I returned to being able to reach out to the digital world when I'm not at work. A good thing, too, as I'm still doing the job of two people at work while they search to replace the coworker whose mess I am currently trying to clean up. I'm making progress. I'm no longer so out of my depth that I constantly want to cry, so there's that.

I am thrilled to have internet again. Now I can do writing work, art work, blogging work, and gaming work, all of which requires an internet connection. This post, for example, is not being written on my lunch break at work. I can now free up that hour for other things. There is much that needs to be done, and now I have an extra hour in which to do it.

But I was talking about returning.

Not just returning to binge-watching YouTube videos.

For the first time in over a month, I jumped into live-streaming Friday evening. I picked up right where I left off, playing Horizon Zero Dawn. It was so much fun, and it was awesome to have everyone drop by and watch me flail around like a tit, as I had forgotten nearly everything. It was so much fun. Honestly, I was grinning like an idiot all evening following the stream. I did a little happy dance. It really was awesome. And the best part it, the internet held up, mostly. I was quite worried that I'd be slammed with constant crashing, dropped frames and so on. The internet cut only once, and the stream itself was really quite smooth.

Also, it was nice to not be interrupted, or feel like I had to censor myself, and not be my true dopey self. I could be loud and annoying, and the only one I'd be annoying (besides the audience) is Galahad. Though, to be honest, he was doing a good job of annoying me. It was no nice.

Saturday, I reactivated my Skillshare account and took the first couple of lessons in finger-style guitar. It's the first time I've picked up the instrument in over a year. It felt really good to be back play again, though I've lost most everything. My fingertips today are very sore. I need to get those callouses back. I am approaching the learning in a two-pronged approach. It's finger-style (or folk) guitar I'm most interested in learning, so I will be continuing with the Skillshare course, as well as the Learn & Master book I started going through in the beginning to teach myself. The book is *really* good for exercises and theory (as well as learning to read music... which I could do already, but the finger placement on a guitar is not the same as on the flute or saxophone).

It was so lovely to play again. I haven't practiced yet today, as of the writing this, but I shall as soon as I'm done this post. After a year away, I've lost so much ground, but I can make it back. With luck, patience and practice, I'll hopefully be playing all of my favourite folk songs within the year.

I also started one of the many art projects I have planned. It's just a small thing, and I managed exactly one half of what I wanted to achieve on Saturday, but it's better than nothing. And it felt good to put brush to paper. Before I pick up my guitar tonight, I'll be adding the second half of the thing I started Saturday.

Sunday was also a return; a return to my Coffee & Creativity live streams. That just where I get up of a Sunday morning, make some coffee and sit down to stream me creating art of some kind. I'm currently working on digital art, but I'm looking to getting a decent video camera so I can set up for also doing analogue paintings and such. I have so many painting ideas now, and it's killing me!

It was so lovely to sit and draw and chat with folks who were also creating, all without the usual (what felt very deliberate) noise from the room immediately beside. It was lovely and quiet. I put on my music, I chatted and created, and drank coffee... cold because I forgot it existed for a while there.

I find I am still struggling to get my act together and actually sit down to do the thing. That's why the Coffee & Creativity stream is such a help. With it, I'll have started at least one art project for the month. I'll have gotten something done. In the months that I've done it, I've always come away with a finished piece.

Because I missed May, due to the move, my mental health recovery (ongoing, but doing so much better; it's like night and day), and no internet, I missed out on creating an art piece for the month. So, I'm kinda cheating this one. The prompt for this month was 'Diametric.' The piece I'm creating, which I still feel might be far too ambitious for my abilities, is a single piece, but it can also be split up, creating three distinct pieces. In this way, I'm able to negate the missing art piece that would have been May's and even add one to my count. I'm gaming the system, folks.

I meant to spend my Sunday doing so much more, but I drew for hours and hours after the stream ended. I neglected to do the mopping because of the time I spent drawing (though I did get my other chores done). I forgot about eating breakfast. Oops. It was so nice to just sit and paint. And, it means that I'm well ahead of where I ought to be with this piece, so I can work on other projects in the time I have allotted for it in the evenings. Which is good, because I have so many ideas.

Right, now it's off to practice my guitar.

​Ciao!